The government of the province of Quebec is so broke it is refusing to pay the extra cost of hospital operations for the extra day during leap year in 2016.
Every four years there is an extra day—February 29th—in the calendar. In the past, the government has provided additional funding to hospitals to cover expenses for the day. A single day of operation costs the province $64 million, reports the Gazette newspaper.
Millions less on top of millions less
Hospitals in Quebec have faced on-going budget cuts for years and now they will have to absorb this shortfall as well. For example, Montreal’s McGill University Health Centre has been ordered to cut $21 million from its budge for next year. In addition to that, it will have to make up the $2.5-dollar cost of doing business on February 29, 2016.
A similar thing happened in the western province of British Columbia last leap year. In 2012, the provincial government refused to give some nursing homes the funding needed for the extra day.
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